The Car Ride
by SomethingOutOfNothing
Summary: Set after the pilot episode. What would the car ride back to the CBI have been like after Jane got Mr Tolliver killed? Well, I thought it might go something like this...


**Disclaimer- are Lisbon and Jane together? No? Then I don't own it, sadly.**

**A/N- to Mentalgal, for her birthday and all her help that she gave me with this, and everything else. Thanks sooo much! :) (and yes, I know it's early.)**

**A/N2- set in the Pilot episode. What would the car ride back to the CBI have been like after Jane got Mr Tolliver killed?**

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"It really wasn't that bad," Jane tried to convince Lisbon as they drove back to the CBI to face the consequences of Jane's actions.

"No Jane. It wasn't that bad. All you did was get a man _killed._"Lisbon said knew he was right. She hated that. He always was. Lisbon tightened her grip on the steering wheel to release part of the frustration she possessed in order to avoid punching the irksome consultant.

"Lisbon, he killed his own daughter because she wouldn't sleep with him. You and I both know that he deserved it." Jane said calmly. He could tell Lisbon was getting annoyed at him by the way her knuckles were whitened and the way her lips were held shut so tightly her mouth was nothing but a small yet firm line below her nose.

"That may be true, but it wasn't up to you Jane." Lisbon said, her feelings failing to hide behind the mask of calm she was trying to hold up. She was already sick of being the one that had to get Jane out of trouble every time he got himself into it. She hoped (beyond all hope) that maybe he would grow out of it, so she wouldn't have to do it much in future cases. The next time, she decided, he could get himself out of it.

"I didn't even touch him." Jane said taking a new approach. He doubted it would be anymore successful, but it couldn't be as bad as the last route he'd tried.

"No, you just played mind games on the wife so she killed him instead." Lisbon said. She honestly didn't feel as bad about the husband being dead as she did about the wife being played by Jane. Not that she'd ever tell him that, that might be considered encouraging him, and that would not go down well.

"All I did was plant a suggestion. It just confirmed what she knew in her heart anyway," Jane countered, realising that Lisbon wasn't going to back down easily.

"A suggestion counts as mind games Jane." Lisbon replied bluntly. She was not going to let him talk his way out of this one.

"Well-" Jane started to defend himself again. He would easily get himself out of trouble with Minelli, but Lisbon was another matter. She definitely knew how to hold a grudge, and Jane was pretty sure she was looking for an excuse to show him that.

"Well nothing. You got a man killed and now you have to face the consequences." Lisbon said. She was convinced she had been sent Patrick Jane as a sort of test. A test on her patience, state of mind, or something like that. But what ever the test was, it was the only thing stopping her from killing him sometimes.

"But-" Jane tried to defend himself for about the fifth time that day, but Lisbon cut him off.

"You didn't even have any proof that he did it until you found that diary!" Lisbon yelled, her voice rising with her anger levels, all traces of calmness gone from her face and voice. Why did he have to do this to her? Every case. And he hadn't even been at the CBI that long! Lisbon was pretty sure she knew how Patrick Jane would die. She would kill him, and claim insanity (which she would then blame on Jane).

"I trust a mothers instinct more than I trust the local cop, who didn't even know the family." Jane explained still staying calm; he was talking as if it didn't affect him. He had been through a lot in his life, one bad man being shot; it just didn't affect him nearly as much as it did before.

"Yeah well, like it or not, this is going to get you into a lot of trouble." Lisbon told him, trying to calm herself back down. But it wasn't just that he had gotten _both of them_ into a lot of trouble that was making her mad. It was that he was making sense out of it all.

"I didn't know she would kill him," Jane protested. He knew full well what the out come would be. But he didn't need to tell Lisbon that, it would probably get her into more trouble, and he had to spend the rest of the day with her. Making her angry by getting her in more trouble than they already were would not end well for him, he knew.

"Yes you did." Lisbon said, knowing too well that he was lying. Jane, as much as she liked to tell him otherwise, was not stupid. He would have read Mrs Tolliver within minutes of meeting her and known that she would kill her husband.

"No, I didn't. All I knew was that it was a strong possibility, that's all." Jane said innocently when they reached the CBI. Neither of them really wanted to go in. Jane because, well, he was Jane and he just did something wrong. Which meant hours of getting yelled at and pretending to be paying attention. And Lisbon because she would probably end up getting yelled at for letting Jane run loose without supervision, then she would have to go into damage control.

"Yeah, just don't tell Minelli that." Lisbon said, reluctantly getting out of the car, she was pretty sure that they would both make it out of the bosses office alive, still with jobs, with just ringing ears to show for it. All that meant was that she'd have _at least _another day or two to put up with the irksome consultant, also known as Patrick Jane.

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**It's only my first Mentalist fic. Anyway, how'd it go? Reviews? Please?**


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